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I recommend this order:
The Murder of Rodger Ackroyd
And Then There Were None (also titled Ten Little Indians)
Murder on the Orient Express
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s another great book on Zen called “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”. I think what Persig is getting at is “non-judgmental observation”. The ability to look at things with no ego involved, like an absolute beginner — so that you’re mind is open to the solutions that naturally present themselves. Both of these books had a big influence on Phil Jackson — the Bulls basketball coach. His interpretation was to not “force”…
> calmly contemplating a system until you get to a point where the next right decision reveals itself. I think I am not getting it because that just sounds like thinking about things and designing stuff. I mean, sometimes, I focus on getting the right primitives so that the rest of the decisions just naturally fall out from that, but I'm not sure that's what you meant.
So, I think we’ve all been there with coding where in either a rush, or driven by ego to solve the problem in some impressive way, we kind of get ourselves tied up. But when we calm our mind, it’s easier to see, “oh, I can just leverage this little change”.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love Valis and it's probably his most mind bending, but I wouldn't recommend starting there. That book works best when you've already been exposed to his bizarre mind-bending style, and also understand a bit of the context of Dick himself (since Valis is semi-autobiographical). My recommendations are Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and A Scanner Darkly. And then re…
All good picks! I was thinking of mentioning Ubik myself. I’d add A Maze of Death also. Thinking about it, yeah, Valis is probably best saved for much later. That’s the same order I read Dick, and knowing a bit of his background and having seen his recurring tropes in fictional form, it added a whole new dimension to see them crop up in... pseudo-autobiographical form? I’m not even sure what to call it!
For sure! Trying to describe what Valis actually is, is about as difficult as pinning down what reality in a PKD novel is.
The fact that PKD's real life experience basically turned into one of his own novels is something I find endlessly fascinating. And also kind of sad, since whatever mental health issues he was dealing with seemed to cause him quite a bit of pain. I have a copy of "The Exegesis of Philip K Dick", and while it's too tedious to just read cover to cover, I'll often just pop it open and read a few pages here and there. Really interesting stuff.
Super serious question. Of the 278 comments that have been posted to this thread in the last 8 hours, has anyone suggested a single female author? I looked for a while and saw exactly zero. Isn’t that kind of notable?
For me, the following are near the top: "The Opposable Mind", by Roger Martin "Antifragile" by Nassim Taleb "The Conscious Universe" by Dean Radin
I'll caution readers here against Conscious Universe as pseudoscience rubbish.
"Permutation City" by Greg Egan is mind-bending in a way similar to The Matrix, except taken up a few notches. Explores the consequences of consciousness being just a pattern. Would it continue if the pattern is paused? Seems yes, since we survive being unconscious. So we move in space and time, but still consciousness feels continuous. What if you pause it, destroy it, recreate it somewhere else. Would it not contin…
You might like the Gateless Gate by Mumon. http://oaks.nvg.org/gate-struggles.html Hui-Neng's "Your Minds Move" The wind was flapping a temple flag, and two monks started an argument. One said the flag moved, the other said the wind moved; they argued back and forth but could not reach a conclusion. The Sixth Patriarch Hui-Neng said, "It is not the wind that moves, it is not the flag that moves; it is your minds that…
Ok, cute, but does it mean anything? Of course the wind moved the flag. Are they all ignorant of physics? No of course not. Its some metaphysical plug about relationships or something. One of those 'one hand clapping' things. I guess the point is to get you to stop overanalyzing. Which I'm doing. But no, I didn't get my mind blown by monks in semantic circles. I guess I'm not ready to be enlightened.
The Teachings of Don Juan - Carlos Castaneda
For science fiction, Dune is a must, and Children of Time is probably the most mind-bending sci-fi I've read since. Both create imaginary worlds that are so detailed and plausible that they make you see our world in a new light.